


Egyptian Oddities

by cave_leporem



Category: Motorcycling RPF
Genre: M/M, complete and utter fluff, written early 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7071730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cave_leporem/pseuds/cave_leporem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(in which Danny slowly gets a clue)</p><p>(in which Efren fails to holiday in Egypt)</p><p>Written in the first half of the 2015 Moto3 season and polished up for the hell of it. Pre-relationship cuteness abounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Egyptian Oddities

**Author's Note:**

> edit 3/6/16: I am an idiot who should not be allowed to write and post when she has such ridiculously high blood-alcohol levels. Seriously, my laptop needs a longer security pin if it's gong to keep a drunk me away.
> 
> I do, of course, admit that none of this happened in reality.
> 
> Formal disclaimer: heh, I wish.
> 
> Enjoi.
> 
> (second edit 3/6/16 Bloody buggering hell, I didn't even spell the title correctly. Laptop. Longer pin needed please and thank you.)

(in which Danny slowly gets a clue)

It started like this: a podium at Qatar, and Danny’s arm being caught when he made his way back to the garage after champagne shenanigans.

“Well done,” Vasquez said, apropos of nothing.

Danny thought he contained his blush. He’d done so much training over the winter, and mental maturity was a big part of it. His dimples, however, reigned free as he grinned back at the Spaniard.

“Thanks!” He said simply, and moved on. The only thing that struck him as odd over the entire thing was how genuine it felt. So hey, he had a podium, and one of his team mates wasn’t a complete dick this year. It was a pretty good beginning.

-*-

Danny liked Texas. He liked it a lot. Vasquez drowned him in champagne to the extent he was still coughing the stuff up as he made his way back off the steps. He leaned over to pick up his trophy, and when he straightened up-

-huh. Vasquez looked away quickly, but he _had_ been looking. Danny played it cool and nudged him as he walked past.

“I’m awesome, right?”

The man gamely parried with a long-suffering grin; Danny was struck all over again by the notion that he actually _liked_ his team mate.

“You did well.”

“Hey,” Danny nudged the Spaniard more firmly. “It was a Leōpard 1-3. _We_ did well.” Efren smiled back at him.

-*-

Once, he could rationalise away as a _Gee shucks, isn’t he great_ sideways glance. But by the end of Argentina (he liked the Americas in general, he’d decided) he’d caught Vasquez looking away from his person seven times. And there’d been that smile on the podium- Leōpard 1-2, _keep it cool but ha, bloody awesome_ , and it-

-huh, he’d thought. He started looking back.

And maybe that was why he’d caught Efren at it so much; it was rather difficult to stop once he started noticing the little things.

-*-

“Hey!” Danny just managed to grab his team mate before the man walked out of the garage. Figuratively speaking. Efren waited for him to say his piece with a raised eyebrow. He looked simultaneously frustrated and amused, giving Danny a lopsided half-grin that he hadn’t seen before. And Danny’s mind went blank. He ended up trotting out, “We got this, okay?”

The half-smile became a full, if rueful one. “I start from row five,” he reminded the Brit matter-of-factly.

Danny waited for any further explanation, but was left hanging. “So?” he eventually asked. “You’re going to be up there fighting for it anyway, right?” He clapped the Spaniard on the shoulder just as his head engineer called him over. “I’ll be watching for you,” he finished, strolling away.

Their eyes caught when he glanced back over his shoulder.

-*-

Danny was- frustrated, was the word- when he pulled up to the garage. For the sake of two tenths, after everything else he’d fought through… He’d had his game race on, that was for sure. Thirteen whole points of game race. It took tripping into the shorter man for him to notice Vasquez standing there. They stumbled for a moment before arms shot out to steady each other.

“… Hi. Sorry,” Danny chuckled weakly.

Efren bit back a smile. “No harm,” he replied softly, lifting his hand from Danny’s shoulder. “Wanted to say thanks- for Jerez. You speak to me, and it helped. Today- I am not so lucky, but I believe in you, and-” The Spaniard appeared to lose his English, so Danny stepped in.

“No thanks needed, mate. Well, not from you.” He re-played Efren’s words, and realised- “But thanks, yanno, for believing in me.” He grinned, the words loosening his tension and letting him appreciate his fourth place for what it was: fantastic, all things considered. “It helps. Sorry about your crash, though.”

Efren shrugged. “I am angry at time, but is racing.”

Danny reached out and squeezed his arm. “It still sucks to happen to you.” And it wasn’t ‘you’ in the general sense that Danny meant. He’s wondering if he didn’t luck out with the most genuine man in the paddock as his team mate, because from that first moment the sincerity hasn’t waned. Every congratulations and exchanged word has been backed by an honesty that would stand up in a court of law. Danny felt more regret that Efren in particular was taken out than he would for most of the rest of the grid, because to him at least, the man was nice. A steady, capable racer who he genuinely liked, sprung from how genuine the man always was with him. It was a bit of a strange feeling. Efren was staring at Danny’s hand on his arm, not at his face, but the Brit felt the weight under those eyes.

“Yes,” he agreed honestly, voice gentling. “Falling is not good at all.”

Danny grinned as the other man looked back up. “Next time then?” It wasn’t really a question. The Spaniard smiled back, softening the lines of his face.

“Next time,” he said, making it sound almost like a promise.

-*-

Danny looked around as he got back to the garage, but saw neither hide nor hair of his Spanish team mate. It was a bit of a shame, but then, he couldn’t say anything he hadn’t already said last time out in France, so maybe it was for the best. The back of his neck prickled, and he turned just in time to see Efren’s shorter stature walking away from the open door.

-*-

As they cooled down from qualifying in the shade of the pits, Danny made sure to catch Efren’s eye. “Second and sixth,” he mused out loud, semi-seriously. “We’ve so got this, right?”

Efren rolled his eyes. “Over-confidence not good look for you.”

And without thinking it through, Danny shot back, “You’d know, from how often you stare at me.”

They both froze.

Danny suddenly had a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue, and Efren’s eyes refused to show any answers. Then, saying nothing more, Efren walked away.

And Danny thought that he was maybe, finally, beginning to see.

-*-

(in which Efren fails to holiday in Egypt)

“Efren.”

The Spaniard glanced up, grimaced, and raised an eyebrow.

Danny grinned, and plonked himself down into the spare seat at the table. He stretched his arms up and out, relishing the ache in his shoulders as he relaxed and slouched back. His grin widened when he noticed Efren’s gaze lingered just a fraction too long. Sue him; it wasn’t the first time he’d caught Efren looking. But to be fair, the Spaniard had caught Danny out more than a few times too.

It was a friendly mutual man-crush, he’d figured, after his thoughtless off-hand comment yesterday; when Danny had opened his mouth, and Efren had walked away.

Then Danny had had to actually think about it. Then Danny had been going over the team data, completely unrelated, until he saw something to make him wonder if there was something else there, too.

The older man flushed, but refused to back down. He attempted to wait his team mate out, but Danny’s patience, among other things, had become legendary in the last three months and eventually, Efren broke.

“What?” Nothing clipped, no anger or frustration; just mild curiosity.

Danny kept it casual, shrugging one shoulder. “You know how we’ve been reviewing the team data, right?”

Efren snorted, and gestured to the table, covered in papers.

Danny quirked a sheepish grin, data sheets, _right_. The Brit powered through the momentary embarrassment and went back to his point. “So the major conclusion I came to is that I owe you a drink.” He finished his conclusion off with a flirty wink, plunging the conversation into the ridiculous.

(Because if he was wrong, they could laugh about it later. But Efren’s reaction… Danny didn’t think he was wrong, here.)

Efren choked on his current drink of choice (water, for the humiliating record). He knew he’d been looking but he hadn’t been that obvious, had he?

In the interest of preserving his sanity, Efren went with the literal interpretation. “Nothing about alcohol in data.”

Danny pinned him with a look. “So not my point, and you know it.”

A look. Team it with a stupid comment, an educated guess and a wing and a prayer, and it was everything Danny was going on, here.

There were a few Spanish words muttered under Efren’s breath.

Danny smiled. “I didn’t quite catch that?”

Efren took a moment to level himself out again. He had to keep the conversation above board. “You are quick. You are consistent. What else you need to know from data?” And the words honestly weren’t bitter. There was no resentment in Efren’s tone, on his face or in his body language. The only edginess in the Spaniard’s posture was from Danny’s implications in the otherwise easy conversation.

So Danny switched tactics. “Third.” He counted the finishes off on one hand. Efren didn’t need to clarify what the younger man was talking about. “Three firsts, fourth,” he started again with the same hand rather than switching; Efren thought it odd. “Second and first.”

Then he switched hands. “Fourth, third, second, fifth,” he waved the counting hand away as if it properly encompassed the disappointment of two DNFs on the bounce (that, Efren was still slightly bitter over, racing incidents or not), before counting, “third,” in a small voice on his little finger. Then he sat forward, spread his hands on the table and stared the Spaniard down. “Notice anything odd?”

Immediately, the older man fired back. “I not beat you yet?”

Danny snickered, and took the opening. “Cute.” He hadn’t explicitly referred to the older man, but Efren dropped his gaze; Danny knew he had more _educated_ than guess. He kicked his team mate gently under the table. “Well, it’s true,” he said lightly, setting the tension aside for the moment with the focus that made him the primary threat to this year’s championship. “But take today, for example… not beating me is one thing, but you didn’t finish a million miles behind me either.”

And _dammit_ , Efren would not be outed this easily, not over such a spur of the moment thing as a race decision. “Is good bike. Is same bike. Same speeds. Same-” he momentarily struggled for the word- “ability. Close results.”

Danny shot that down straight away. “It’s not coincidence,” he pressed. “I only really noticed it in the data- you were looking out for me, weren’t you?”

 _Dammit_. So Efren went back to tried and true avoidance tactics: “What?”

Deny everything. There isn’t anything to deny, anyway.

And Danny grinned. “You sat up.” Efren was still resting against the back of his chair, and communicated this via pointed glances and eyebrows. Danny rolled his eyes in return. “You aren’t this clueless, Efren. You sat up. In the slipstream. You could have, should have, gone sailing past me and probably Bastianini too, but you sat up.”

Efren squinted suspiciously. “You did too.” He dared the Brit to call him on it.

“It’s my way,” Danny defended easily. “I wait, I look, I go when I’ve got the biggest advantage, but you-”

“Me what?”

“You waited with me. And then, you went with me, and sat up just before you overshot me. Not the corner, not the braking zone, _me_.”

In this situation, Efren was not above playing up to his disadvantages. “Brake earlier than you,” he pointed out, saying what the entire world already knew.

Danny was becoming visibly frustrated by Efren’s stubborn deflection; he scrubbed a hand though his hair. “We slipstreamed the lot of them,” he recounted from the race, “And then you slowed down in the first corner. You slowed everyone else down behind you.”

Efren shrugged, beginning to feel like he was on the front foot again. Or at least, he wasn’t lagging behind. “You went quick. Not able to keep up.”

The Brit looked at him strangely, focussing on his eyes. “I think that’s the first time you’ve outright lied to me.”

And that comment caused the same feeling Efren felt when he crashed out of the lead. Still, he tried. “You not know me well. Maybe I lie all the time.”

That was it. Now, Danny reckoned, was the moment to be brave. “I might not know you,” he conceded, “But I watch you a hell of an awful lot.” He leaned in over the table. “And you know I’m telling the truth, Efren, because you watch me too. Now maybe I didn’t realise it sooner; I reckon it was harmless mutual appreciation. But you were watching out for me during a race you could have won, why-”

“You didn’t get away.” Efren interrupted that chain, replayed those few laps where he had wondered _should I go for it?_. He knew the tenuous ground of his denial was slipping through his fingers, so he went all out and spoke his (polite) mind. “Stupid.”

He was referring to both of them.

He should have at least tried, surely? But the heat of the moment had whispered _let him go, he’ll get you on the brakes and you’ll still have a dogfight with the others on your hands_. He wondered when he’d stopped believing in himself, and realised at the same time that it was instead when he’d started believing in _Danny_.

For that comment, Danny kicked him again. “I tried, alright?”

It took Efren a moment to remember what he’d provoked the Brit with. He snorted. “Not enough.”

“Oi!” Danny kicked him harder. “Truth.”

Efren flashed Danny a smile that faltered under his team mate’s serious gaze. “So you admit it?”

Efren ducked his gaze, speaking more to the table. “You already work it out, anyway.”

Danny leaned back, but his expression was only slightly surprised. “You like me.” Slowly, Efren nodded.

In contrast, he was poleaxed by Danny’s follow up.

“That’s good, because I think I like you too.”


End file.
